[The Kwangwoon University 2025 Pre-Startup Package CEO] Soulchasa, Launching ‘Behind Seoul’ an Immersive Adventure Tourism Service

Ha Hyeon Cho, CEO of Soulchasa

-A dedicated operational body supporting the missions and adventures of tourists, known as ‘Soulchasas’ while developing a premier Korean tourism platform

-Physical ‘Tourism IDs’ inspired by the Joseon-era Hopae(identification tags) with integrated NFC technology

Soulchasa is the operational backbone behind ‘Behind Seoul,’ an immersive adventure tourism service.

The company is positioned within its own narrative universe as a dedicated support organization that enables the missions and journeys of tourists, known as ‘Soulchasas’

Soulchasa, The term combines ‘soul’, referring to the act of collecting spirits, and Chasa, a title used in the Joseon Dynasty for officials entrusted with important missions. The name reflects the role of participants as agents who embark on meaningful, story-driven journeys.

‘Behind Seoul’ is an outdoor escape-room-style tourism platform in which visitors become ‘Soulchasas,’ receiving curated tourism information across Seoul while exploring traditional cultural landmarks hidden behind the city’s surface.

Participants experience not only practical travel information about each location, but also its hidden stories and symbols through mission-based activities and collectible content.

While conventional tourism primarily focuses on information delivery, Behind Seoul is designed as an experience-driven journey that enables visitors to understand spaces through exploration, choice, and physical movement. The company was founded in June 2025 by CEO Ha Hyeon Cho (29).

“Soulchasa oversees content planning, experience design, and platform operations to ensure that visitors can engage deeply and meaningfully with Korean cultural heritage”, said CEO Cho. “Under the slogan 'Adventure First, Tour Second,' our core goal is to create experiences where tourists see spaces through a completely new lens.”

The flagship service, ‘Behind Seoul,’ centers on storytelling-driven content that integrates missions, puzzles, guided narrative elements, and Augmented Reality (AR) within Seoul’s traditional cultural sites. It is intentionally structured as an ‘on-site mission-based tourism experience’ rather than a passive audio guide or leaflet-based service, allowing users to truly engage with their surroundings.

A key physical component of this experience is the ‘Tourism ID’ a modern reinterpretation of the Hopae, an identification tag from the Joseon Dynasty. Equipped with NFC technology, users can tag their NFC Hopae to access a personalized tourism website.

There, users receive themes tailored to their ‘Soulchasa type,’ access location-based daily recommendations—such as weather, personalized routes, nearby attractions, and local events—and initiate outdoor escape-room missions. The Hopae serves as a ‘physical token’ of the journey, enhancing retention and the sense of collection. Currently available in signature designs based on the Sibangsa (Four Guardian Deities), the product line is expanding to include various traditional patterns, with future plans for it to function as a tourism pass, souvenir, and a means of verification for affiliated offline stores.

The competitiveness of ‘Behind Seoul’ lies in its design as an ‘operable product.’ For tourism services to be sustainable, high-quality content must be matched by operational efficiency. Soulchasa has designed stories, games, on-site User Experience (UX), and operational processes simultaneously to ensure both ‘immersive enjoyment’ and ‘scalable operations.’

Furthermore, the physical Hopae functions as more than a souvenir; it grants users a ‘tourism identity’ and serves as an offline authentication medium that accumulates rewards as they ‘collect souls’ through the story-driven missions. This strengthens the physical touchpoint—often the weakest link in digital experiences—and offers high scalability for integration with affiliated cultural institutions (for admission, missions, rewards, and interactions).

Regarding future goals, Cho stated, “We believe the success of tourism should be measured not simply by visitor numbers, but by the quality of personalized experiences and how long those experiences stay with people.”
“In the short term, our goal is to develop a tourism website and outdoor escape-room-style activities centered around traditional cultural landmarks within specific districts of Seoul, and to establish a self-sustaining operational model that enables paid conversion and high revisit rates”, she added.

Founded: June 2025
Core Business: AR-based outdoor escape-room tourism platform (traditional story collection & missions); NFC Hopae-integrated goods and kits; NFC Hopae transit cards; collaborative experiential programs for institutions and local regions
Key Achievements: Tumblbug crowdfunding launch scheduled for early 2026

reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com